Just spent ten days in the lakes, based up at Caldbeck for 7 of them. Did the following Wainwright peaks - Whin Rigg, Illgill Head (from Nether Wasdale), Dodd, Binsey, Skiddaw via Ullock Pike, Long Side and Carl Side with the descent via Bakestall (big walk that), Latrigg from Keswick, Carrock Fell, then finally Stone Arthur, Great Rigg and Heron Pike from Grasmere. Few pics:
In between Whin Rigg and Illgill Head looking down at Wast Water.
This was from the top of Skiddaw. The mist finally fucked off for a few seconds to reveal the ridge that we had just walked up via Ullock Pike etc.
Great view of Skiddaw here from the top of Latrigg. Proper mountain
There are the remains of an Iron Age fort at the top of Carrock Fell. Lovely peaceful atmosphere up there, I could have stayed for hours. Right up my street.
The walk up to Stone Arthur then onto Great Rigg and back across to Heron Pike was everything that is brilliant about walking in the lake district. You see Stone Arthur here from Grasmere and it looks a significant walk
You get up there and realise that you're not far from the beginning and the views start opening up. You look back over Grasmere and the Scafell family in the distance are cloaked in cloud like fucking Mordor.
On the way up to Great Rigg the view across to Heron Pike was brilliant. You can see Windemere ahead and Coniston Water further to the right in the distance.
We were gonna go onto Fairfield from Great Rigg but it was too misty and a bit of a risk with the kids so turned back and went to Heron Pike then down from there. View here of Great Rigg from Heron Pike and Fairfield beyond that covered in mist
....then beyond that a magical, mystical land in the sky where giants live who keep geese who lay golden eggs etc. May as fucking well be, I've never seen anything but mist up there. Did the entire Fairfield horseshoe in June and couldn't see fuck all for most of it, it felt a slog. Apparently the views from Fairfield are amazing across the big Eastern Fells like Dollywagon Pike, Nethermost Pike, Helvellyn, Catstycam, St Sunday Crag etc. Maybe I'll see it one day. But that's the whole beauty of walking around there. You think you've gone far then the landscape just keeps opening up further. There is a revelatory aspect to it. It really does feel like another world up in the clouds and as you progress the usual mental cul de sacs you carry about with you fade and you feel insignificant in a good way.
Finally, this my favourite place to have a nap. Allan Bank at Grasmere where Wordsworth and other "creatives" lived in a sort of early 1800s proto hippy commune for a few years, going walking in the fells and writing poems about the immeasurable majesty of nature etc (or taking opium and staying in your room like Samuel Taylor Coleridge did, the daft get). I've had three brilliant naps in this room now while the kids have played outside. Napping is allowed there. Encouraged even.
